The Humble Potato: A Place in History
The potato is the ultimate comfort food and a British staple. It’s a truly unassuming vegetable that holds a significant place in our culinary history – it’s super tasty and an excellent source of B vitamins and fibre. From delicious roasties to fluffy jackets, crispy chips, and creamy mash, the potato is packed full of vital nutrients. Potatoes are naturally fat-free and low in calories, and when served with their skins on, they are bursting with vitamins and minerals and are a great source of fibre.

Variety is Key
Jack Buck Farms grows a number of different varieties to meet various culinary needs:

• Maris Piper: A premium potato perfect for roasting, chipping, and mashing.
• We also grow Tyson, Saphire, and Safari. We strive to achieve as high a percentage of large ‘baker’ sizes as possible for our customers.

Planting for Quality
The land is ploughed in the autumn, allowing the vital winter frosts to help break the soil into a fine, workable tilth. We practice a wide rotation of at least seven years for our potatoes. This critical practice minimises the risk of soil pests and diseases, which helps protect both yield and skin quality. In April, when the soil is typically warm enough, we begin planting.

The land is cultivated to produce a fine seedbed, allowing the roots to grow freely. The seed potatoes are then planted into ridges. This technique gives the roots plenty of room to grow and helps prevent the tubers from being exposed to light, which would cause them to turn green.

Harvesting & Storage
The growing period over the summer involves constantly monitoring for disease and pests, along with irrigating when necessary. Usually by the end of September, the skins will have formed and harvesting can begin. Harvesting and grading will keep us busy for around six weeks, depending on field conditions. We store all our potatoes in one-tonne wooden boxes within our temperature-controlled stores. We start selling in November, allowing the boxes and storage facilities to be used again for our celeriac crop.

We sell our potatoes through Nene Potatoes, a group of 35 like-minded potato growers who have pooled resources to market their own potatoes, supplying supermarkets and wholesale markets. www.nenepots.co.uk

Check out some footage here: